Iran’s Customs Administration says at least eight million tons of essential goods have been piling up on ships anchored off the country's southern ports apparently mainly due to payment issues.
According to a report by Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, the deputy head of the Customs Administration has recently said that ships are stranded at ports – mainly at Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni (Imam Khomeini port) in the Khuzestan province and Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province -- waiting to unload their cargo.
The official said that the goods, a large part of which are food and animal feed, cannot be unloaded also due to a lack of permits necessary for them to be cleared. Some of the essential goods need three or four permits from the Ministry of Health, Standard organization and Plant Protection Organization, which oversees the quarantine processes.
He said that about 1,800 to 2,000 trucks are being loaded every day and transferred from Imam Khomeini port, but the number of the trucks does not seem to be enough to avoid the blockage.
But the main impediment for clearance of these goods has been lack of foreign currency for a long time. Importers need to receive US dollars or other foreign currencies from the government to pay suppliers before the ships would anchor at the ports and discharge their cargos. Iran is currently in a crisis for not having enough foreign currency and the US dollar has reached a historic high. One dollar can buy 450,000 Iranian rials, while five years ago the exchange rate was around 35,000.
The ships have to declare their goods first, and then the customs administration should remove the obstacles in the way of their clearance within seven days, but the process is not working smoothly. But the suppliers of the goods await payment first before ordering the ships to dock.
Since the government has removed the subsidy in the form of cheap dollars for the essential goods, many importers face difficulties providing the needed foreign currency.
In January, Iran’s judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei said tens of ships have arrived in territorial waters of the country, but the Islamic Republic cannot unload them therefore the country must pay fines for the delay in discharging cargos. The delay in payments is the main reason that has disrupted flows of goods into the country.
Most ships should receive full payment right before they dock at a port to unload their cargo. If payment is not arranged, the ships wait off the coast. “Some of these ships are paid $25,000-65,000 per day as demurrage,” noted Ejei.
Some of these goods, which are not unloaded, added Ejei, “are damaged due to long waits by the ships, but these goods are necessary for the country,” he underlined.
Iran's currency has dropped by 30 percent since September and both the government and private importers face a financial crunch.
Food is exempt from the US sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, but the impact of the sanctions on Iran's financial system have created complex payment arrangements with international companies.
Reuters reported on December 21, that dozens of merchant ships with grains and sugar are stuck outside Iranian ports after weeks of delays in payment.
Moderate Aftab News website reported that the lawmakers were going around in the parliament (Majles) on January 31, gathering signatures in support of the motion. However, those who support the idea do their best to conceal their identity before the motion is tabled at the Majles.
The website said that the lawmakers appear to fear reactions by Raisi and other ultraconservatives to what they are doing. Nonetheless, their names cannot be kept a secret for long. Aftab News said that they even refused to talk to reporters about the motion that signifies their dissatisfaction about Raisi's performance.
Others at the Majles, including hardliner Mohsen Pirhadi told Aftab News that questioning the president about his performance is not wrong and is part of the parliament's supervisory mandate.
It appears that some cabinet ministers' manoeuvres to evade impeachment pushed the President into the questioning trap. After all, Raisi was the one who did his best to prevent the impeachments regardless of lawmakers' complaints about several cabinet ministers' inefficiency, wrote Aftab News.
Although lawmakers appear to be more determined this time to question Raisi, the website said that it is unlikely most deputies would vote for the motion. Meanwhile, Lawmaker Ahmad Alireza Beigi said he does not believe that Majles would take such a step. However, he said that first, cabinet ministers should be impeached and then if the plan for impeachment does not go ahead smoothly, the lawmakers can question Raisi.
Meanwhile, a Khabar Online website report on February 1 said lawmakers are planning to question Raisi on 6 grounds. According to the website, this is the second call for questioning Raisi during the past 8 months. The first time, only two lawmakers signed the motion. According to the law, at least a quarter of the 290 lawmakers at the Majles need to sign a questioning motion if it is going to go any further.
According to Khabar Online, if the motion progresses this time, the lawmakers will ask questions about "the chaotic situation of the forex market and failing to issue electronic coupons to provide essential commodities to the nation."
Khabar Online quoted one of the unnamed lawmakers who was collecting signatures in support of the motion as having said some of his peers have welcomed the idea of questioning the President, but some others are too scared to sign the request for the motion."
In April last year, Lawmaker Mostafa Hosseini Ghotbabadi had even said that lawmakers have called for designating the president as incompetent, a motion that kicked out Iran's first President Abolhassan Banisadr in June 1981.
Raisi has been most recently criticized for feeding the nation with false information and fabricated statistics about his achievements during a televised interview earlier this week. During the past months the figures he presented about inflation, employment and economic growth were seriously challenged by the media and even by hardliner newspapers published by the IRGC.
The media have been questioning Raisi's performance in the areas of housing, employment and controlling prices. The most important point made against Raisi's figures is that while the official inflation rate in January was 51 percent, He still insists that it is no higher than 40 percent.
Iran’s currency, rial has fallen to 450,000 to the US dollar speeding up inflation that is expected soon to surpass the official rate of 51 percent. All government attempts to manipulate the forex market have so far failed.
A photo of Meysami along with a letter from Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj were published on social media Thursday, showing him in a horrible condition after losing weight.
However, the political activist wrote in the letter to prison officials that “I will still insist on my three demands of stopping the execution of protesters, releasing six political prisoners, and stopping mandatory hijab.”
The title of political activist's letter is "For the days of suffering and suffering and suffering".
Farhad Meysami, who has been behind bars since August 2018 was arrested and sentenced to six years in jail for his activism against mandatory hijab.
Last month, in a message from Rajaei-shahr prison, he demanded the immediate release of several civil and political activists.
Meysami also went on a hunger strike in May in protest to the possible execution of Ahmadreza Jalali, a Swedish-Iranian dual national scientist taken hostage since 2016 was under the threat of execution last year.
Meysami later announced that he has ended his two-week hunger strike as Ahmadreza Jalali was not executed. Before the end of that hunger strike, his physical condition was so critical that he was transferred to hospital.
Meysami, a doctor and teacher, said in a message last year that he had met Djalali at Tehran's Evin prison over three years earlier. "He had been on hunger strike in protest to repeated threats of his execution and the effects of which on his body and soul were clearly visible," he wrote.
"Imagine subjecting a human being to this repeatedly. Not once, not twice… Is there any torture worse than this?" Meysami said about repeated threats of execution made against Djalali.
"I don't want to just oppose Dr Djalali's execution, I want to draw attention to something much more important, to draw attention to the fact that they send a man to his death many times and bring him back," he wrote. "Regular and intentional torture like this is definitely crime against humanity."
Meanwhile, famous Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has also gone on a hunger strike to protest his detention in Tehran while his sentence has been declared void by the country’s Supreme Court.
“I firmly declare that in protest against the illegal and inhumane behavior of the judicial and security apparatus and their hostage-taking, I have started a hunger strike since the morning of February 1… I will refuse to eat and drink any food and take medicine until the time of my release,” read a statement he sent to his wife.
Iran has been the scene of nationwide protests against the clerical regime after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September.
Authorities have not released any information on the number of detainees, those injured and killed in the protests that began nearly three weeks ago following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini who was arrested for not wearing her hijab “properly”.
Human rights organizations says that nearly 520 protesters, including children, have been killed by security forces during the protests.